Around 100 residents and workers were evacuated after fire broke out in a waste plant sparking a chemical alert.

The blaze in a number of large oil drums caused plumes of black smoke visible from miles around as it spread through Arrow Environmental Services in West Bromwich.

Acrid smoke shot into the air from the fire, which started at around 1.45pm in part of the premises used to recycle waste oil.

See more pictures in our gallery to your right
Staff at the firm in Kelvin Way faced a huge clean-up today as oil had flooded from the building onto land outside. The cause is not yet known but it is suspected the hot weather may be to blame. Workers at the scene described how the flames escalated in seconds and a series of bangs followed.



Around 35 firefighters tackled the blaze at its height and hazardous materials officers were drafted in. Firefighter Steve Husbands said crews faced a fight to stop the waste oil entering water courses. Also an oxygen cylinder exploded, causing a fireball, and about seven other cylinders had to be removed amid fears they would also blow up.

Arrow declined to comment.

There are lots of important things to consider when choosing an apartment, house or trailer: commute time, distance to retail centers, public schools -- but perhaps the most important thing of all is, "How do I get rid of that stagnant meth-lab odor?"
Well, thanks to companies like USA Decon, you too can make sure your new abode is suitably free of residues left behind by any former occupants who engaged in the fine art of meth manufacturing. Had we known this sorta thing existed years ago, we never would've agreed to live in that one trailer in the desert for six months. Here are some things USA Decon's CEO, John DiGulio, told us in an e-mail about former meth lab cleanin':

Waste byproducts: "The danger of chemical fires and explosions extends beyond methamphetamine manufacture. After producing the finished methamphetamine, clandestine lab workers are typically left with 5-6 pounds of hazardous waste for each pound of finished methamphetamine produce."

HARMFUL chemicals including hydrochloric and sulphuric acid were left in an Ammanford factory — creating a high risk for people living nearby.

The Environment Agency Wales (EAW) removed some 500 containers and five chemical lagoons at the former electroplating facility, the exact location of which has not been disclosed.

Kimberley Ekin-Wood, from the EAW, said: "This site posed a high risk to both the local environment and people living in the area so removing the chemicals had to be a priority."

The factory has been empty for several years.

The EAW, alerted by the fire service found the previous landowners had left it full of waste chemicals. These included hydrochloric acid, chromic acid, sulphuric acid and sodium hydroxide.

HOLLYWOOD — A four-block stretch of A1A in Hollywood reopened Monday night after being closed much of the day while HazMat units and the bomb squad tried to remove a chemical-filled 55-gallon drum that washed ashore over the weekend.

The day-long effort to remove the drum became complicated in the afternoon when the drum broke apart and appeared to detonate, spewing white smoke, Hollywood fire department officials said. The Broward Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad was called.

The mysterious drum was finally carted away for proper disposal before 9 p.m. and the roadway reopened.

What chemical the drum contained is unknown pending test results.

MARIETTA, Ga. — Several people were treated outside a Marietta medical school on Friday morning.

Hazat crews swarmed the Everest Institute after reports of people being exposed to Methacrylate Momoner, a surgical super glue. A building at the school was evacuated around lunchtime.

“This type of vial was broken in the classroom, and they disposed of it outside in the Dumpster. This is a surgical type of bonding that they use when they do surgery,” Cobb County Fire Department spokeswoman Denell Boyd said.

Channel 2’s Ross Cavitt was at the scene as patients were being decontaminated. Those  who came into "sniffing range" of the chemical suffered symptoms including, nausea, vomiting and eye and ear irritation, officials said. Boyd said four of 13 patients had been decontaminated. At least 7 people were transported to Kennestone Hospital for non-life-threatening conditions.

The demolition of the former Canterbury Brewery had to be suspended on Wednesday after a small chemical fire.
The fire was caused by chemicals being taken from the site mixing with nitrous oxide in the bottom of the tank being used to transport the waste.
Workers at the site were evacuated while the fire was brought under control.

The Charlottesville Fire and Rescue HAZMAT squad responded to a potential HAZMAT situation Thursday afternoon at 3:20 p.m. on McCormick Road outside the University Chapel, before declaring the scene all clear about an hour later.

University spokesperson Carol Wood said a student placed an emergency call after he discovered an abandoned biohazard bag on a University Transit Service bus and thought it might contain contaminants or other dangerous materials.

“We were thinking there might be a potential HAZMAT situation,” she said. “They have since determined it was just a pair of shorts and a T-shirt in the bag.”

Charlottesville Police Chief Charles Werner said the use of the biohazard bag was “inappropriate,” but said it ultimately posed no risk to health. “It was just because of the nature of the biohazard bag which made [the situation a cause] of concern,” he said.

Werner said the HAZMAT team gave the bag to University Environmental Health and Safety, which disposed of the contents.

The University and local emergency services took “every precaution” when responding to the situation, Wood said, especially because the bus had stopped “right in the middle of Grounds in a busy intersection” which students, faculty and visitors walk through frequently.

“You just don’t want to mess around with anything like this,” she said. “Everybody — the students and passengers, the bus driver, everybody — was taken off the bus.”

ELKHART, Ind. — Trash bags on the edge of the road may not be dirty diapers and food scraps. As city officials and a volunteer at the Elkhart Environmental Center found out recently, it could be the remnants of a meth lab.

And local police and firefighters don't have the training to clean them up.

City Councilman Ron Troyer was driving around his district March 27 with the new community affairs officer at the Elkhart Police Department, Sgt. Wayne Bias. Among things they looked at was trash dumped along the side of Perkins Street on city property at the Elkhart Environmental Center.

A number of trash bags and tires sat just below and within 15 feet of a sign that warns of a $2,500 fine for dumping trash, Troyer said.

The Elkhart Street Department was asked to pick up the trash, but Commissioner Marty Morgan told Troyer it was determined the trash was actually meth trash and it was tagged with yellow ribbons to be picked up by the Indiana State Police, which has a special unit to dispose of meth labs.

The remains included tubing, tin foil, pseudoephedrine, bottles with liquid in them and cakes of white powder residue, Assistant Police Chief Tim Balyeat said.

"The police department is not trained, is not equipped and does not have the storage facilities" to deal with meth labs, he said.

More than 10 days later — the bags were still there, Troyer said.

Mayor Dick Moore's office ordered the materials cleaned up, Balyeat said. A short time later, the Elkhart Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Team was in special suits and respiratory protection containing the bags.

JAFFREY - A chemical reaction between two combustible materials is believed to have caused the two-alarm fire at Monadnock Disposal Services Tuesday morning, Jaffrey Fire Chief David Chamberlain said.

Firefighters responded to the structure fire at the private waste-disposal business on Old Sharon Road at 10:16 a.m.

Shortly after firefighters arrived, there was a small explosion in the fire, Chamberlain said, so firefighters worked to douse the flames from outside the building.

The fire started on the tipping floor inside the building where workers sort the trash for disposal, Chamberlain said.

“It's hard to tell what's in the Dumpsters,” he said, adding he believes a reaction between two hazardous materials caused the fire.

“It was something that came in from a Dumpster from a facility. Again it's hard to tell because there are multiple trucks that come to dump, moving around by an operator with an excavator,” Chamberlain said. “That's the problem nowadays; something gets put into a Dumpster (and) two things — two chemicals — come together, mix together and create another chemical and then mix with another chemical.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Health violated federal law governing the handling and storage of hazardous waste at two of its facilities and has fined the agency $68,000 for the violations. EPA inspections at the facilities, the Old Municipal Facility in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas and 3500 Estate Richmond, Christiansted in St. Croix, found unlabeled and decaying containers of chemicals and pesticides on the properties. Many of the containers spilled and the USVI Department of Health failed to properly identify what types of waste were being stored. In some instances, the hazardous chemicals had been kept on-site for over ten years in a state of neglect and decay. Among the hundreds of hazardous chemicals on-site were pyrethrin (a neurotoxin), chlorpyrifos (an insecticide) and calcium hypochlorite (a bleach) – all of which are toxic. Federal environmental law requires hazardous chemicals to be stored, handled and disposed of properly to safeguard public health and the environment.

Veolia Environmental Services Technical Solutions reported a small fire at its hazardous materials recycling facility in Menomonee Falls Wednesday morning.
A flammable and corrosive liquid ignited while a sample was being taken from a single drum container, facility manager Joe Baumann said.
The fire was contained to the individual drum and a small area around it. No other hazardous materials were involved, he said.
The fire and was fully extinguished about 15 minutes after it broke out, Baumann added.
No injuries were sustained as a result of this small fire, although an employee was evaluated at a local hospital and released.

AHMEDABAD: City reported three major fire incidents on Sunday afternoon. In the first incident, an AMC waste disposal site in Gyaspur village in the outskirts of the city caught fire on Sunday evening after a dumper rammed into a stationary electric pole. Three fire fighters and two tankers of Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Services (AEFS) doused flames. AFES officials also attended fire calls from Odhav and Sarkhej-Bavla highway.

The officials said fire at Gyaspur was a major operation as they had to ensure that the fire does not spread in the highly inflammable heaps of waste. Another major operation was carried out in Odhav near Takshshila Society where nearby chemical units had disposed of their chemical waste near residential area and set it on fire.

"Nearby residents called us up after the burning chemical spread a stench in the area along with lot of smoke and fumes that caused eye and nose irritation. We sent six vehicles including fire fighters and tankers to control fire," said AFES officials.

NORWALK -- Every on-duty firefighter in Norwalk fought to prevent a Wednesday afternoon blaze in a building at LaJoie's Scrap and Recycling from igniting thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and exploding containers of accelerants.

Deputy Fire Chief Ed Prescott said the fire tore through the 60-foot-by-60-foot, two-story sheet metal building that houses the mid-20th century, 20-cylinder diesel locomotive engine that powers a car shredder. The building contained about 9,000 gallons of diesel fuel as well as containers of acetylene and oxygen, fire officials said.

"Our main concern was that a lot of acetylene tanks and oxygen tanks were compromised and were fueling the fire," he said. "Our guys worked really hard to contain it to where it was and to make sure there was external explosions."

Two specially trained officers were among 17 firefighters to attend reports of dumped chemical waste – which turned out to be used chip fat.

Police received reports of a mystery smell and a leak coming from ten plastic containers left in the Co-Op car park on Barras Street, Liskeard, at 9.15pm on Tuesday.

They contacted Cornwall Fire Service, who sent out two fire crews, plus an environment support vehicle and two officers specially trained to handle hazardous materials.

The area was cordoned off and firefighters wore specialist clothing to inspect the contents of the containers, only to find it was used cooking oil.

But yesterday, Lee Griffin, the fire services group manager for service delivery, said the service had to “err on the side of caution”, but said the response was scaled-down because of “common sense”. It could have cost up to £10,000 if protocol had been followed blindly. As it was, it cost about £1,500, he said.

Mr Griffin called whoever dumped the waste “totally irresponsible”, and urged any witnesses to contact Cornwall Council’s environmental services department.

KENNEBUNK — A chemical reaction led to a gas explosion at Corning Inc. last week, sending three people to the hospital.

Kennebunk Fire Chief Stephen Nichols said chemicals, including nitric acid, were mixed in a dispensing barrel in a waste room, giving off explosive hydrogen gas, on the night of Wednesday, March 14.

"Either an electric motor or a switch or something triggered it to ignite and caused the explosion," Nichols said. "The explosion, it burned up all the gas. It was a gas cloud and that was the end of it."

Three employees were transported to Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford, but were released without injury, Nichols said. The explosion happened around 9:30 p.m.

A hazardous materials team was brought in for clean-up, Nichols said. There was no residual fire from the explosion, and damage was confined to the waste room.

"It was just a matter of, unfortunately, something that shouldn't have been introduced that was introduced into the barrels," Nichols said.

Three employees of Heritage-WTI taken to a local hospital Tuesday afternoon have been released and will be back on the job soon, according to a company spokesman.

The three employees became faint while working with a solid hazardous waste and were taken by company safety personnel to East Liverpool City Hospital, where they remained overnight for observation, according to Heritage-WTI officials.

None of the three were taken by helicopter to another facility as has been rumored, public relations specialist Raymond Wayne said, also noting that reports of four employees being involved were inaccurate.

All three were at the plant Thursday morning, presenting their medical release papers, Wayne said, adding, "They were fine."

When they became ill, the employees were wearing personal protective equipment that included respiratory protection. The material may have contained aniline, a chemical used in a variety of ways, including blue jean dye, polyurethane and medications.

SPARTA — Sussex County Technical School was closed Thursday and will remain closed today after a Wednesday night fire that severely damaged a science classroom, police said.

The township Police Communications Center received a fire alarm from the high school at 8:35 p.m., according to a news release from the police department, which said the alarm was activated by smoke detectors.

Heavy smoke
A janitor reported a heavy smoke condition on the second floor of the building as Sparta firefighters arrived at 8:40 p.m. and entered the building.

On the second floor, a biology, chemistry, environmental lab was filled with thick smoke and flames coming from the base of one of the work tables, police said.

The fire quickly was extinguished and the classroom was ventilated though it sustained heavy fire, smoke and water damage. An adjoining classroom also sustained heavy smoke and water damage, police said.

There were no injuries reported.

The cause of the fire was determined to be “nonsuspicious” after an investigation was conducted by the State Police Arson Unit, Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office, Sparta Detective Terrence Mulligan and Sussex County Fire Marshal Michael Alvarez.

Source of fire
The fire appears to have started in a plastic garbage can after a chemical reaction occurred inside the container, police said.

The specific types of chemicals involved in the fire still are being determined, but it appeared that some accidentally were discarded in the can. Those chemicals have the potential to be volatile when mixed.

BEND, Ore. -- A federal-state hazardous material team was wrapping up identification, packaging and clean-up work Thursday at a southeast Bend recycling business that unknowingly bought hundreds of unlabeled chemicals someone improperly left stored at a nearby mini-storage business, officials said.
Pakit Liquidators at 903 SE Armour St. contacted authorities when the chemicals, apparently from an old research lab of some sort, were found among items the firm bought when Clark’s Storage, a Ninth Street mini-storage business, sold off the items in two storage units whose leases expired due to unpaid rent, said Brian Allen, a hazardous waste compliance inspector with the state Department of Environment Quality in Bend.
"They brought the equipment, books, everything over to their site," Allen said. The Pakit workers began going through the materials on Sunday, March 4 and “noticed they had acquired some chemicals,” so they contacted Bend police, who in turn put them in touch with the Oregon Emergency Response System, Allen said.

HERMISTON -- People living in Eastern Oregon and Washington can sleep a little safer now that the Umatilla Chemical Depot officially has been put to rest.

To celebrate the occasion, the Army's chemical materials agency held a celebration Thursday night marking Umatilla's end of an era for storing dangerous chemical agents used in warfare since World War II.

About 300 people attended the event and listened to military and corporate officials pay tribute to the community's support for the depot since 1941.

"This is a historic milestone," said Gary Anderson, project manager for the site. "All the secondary waste has been removed, which brings a preservation of peace to the depot."

The 20,000-acre site eventually will be turned back into public use and hopefully provide some job opportunities, he added.

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A potassium cyanide leak forced an evacuation in the South Valley Saturday morning.

It happened in Visalia at the household hazardous waste collection site on Cain near Goshen just after 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The Visalia Fire Department says the leak happened while workers were preparing a container for packing.

The fire department responded with its hazmat team, and the area was evacuated for several hours while the leak was contained.

No one was injured, and the evacuation was lifted before 1:30 p.m. this afternoon.

LOWER POTTSGROVE — A recycling truck’s crew got a scare during their rounds Monday after a distinct chemical odor and a white “cloud” emerged from their truck’s back while it was compacting a load.
Caution tape surrounded the red J.P. Mascaro truck at the top of a hill on Deer Ridge Drive near Quail Lane around 2 p.m. Monday. The displaced crew stood together around a Mascaro pickup truck just inside the tape. “They picked up some (stuff) in the neighborhood and with some kind of container with a chemical in it,” Lt. Mike Foltz of the Lower Pottsgrove Police said. “They smelled this chemical’s fumes, there was a cloud and they called it in.” The Sanatoga and Ringing Hill Fire Companies responded to the call. Fire police blocked off most of the street, although residential traffic was allowed to move through the area not taped off, which consisted of the area between Quail Way and Laurel Way.

he state Department of Environmental Protection was continuing its investigation of the second spill of condensate fluids in three months at a Chevron-Appalachia Marcellus Shale gas well operation in Robinson, Washington County.

John Poister, a DEP spokesman, said Sunday that the spilled condensate -- a mixture of liquid hydrocarbons or "wet gases" and drilling fluids -- was discovered Thursday by a township employee inspecting a nearby facility that separates the fluids from the natural gas. The spilled liquid had run into Bigger Run Creek, a tributary of Raccoon Creek. He had no information about whether fish or aquatic life were killed, but cleanup crews placed absorbent material in the creek on Friday.

State Police say HAZMAT teams are still cleaning up a nasty spill on Interstate 81 south in Pulaski County.

Troopers tell WSLS that a dump truck flipped near the Dublin exit around 4:00 p.m.  The truck was hauling congealed/solid wastewater treatment plant waste.

The crash spilled 8 tons of the sludge, six on the shoulder, and two on the road.

SALEM, Ore. - A one-liter pop bottle that turned up following a police chase at an elementary school caused a bit of a stir on Wednesday.

The incident happened around 1:40 p.m. at Mary Eyre Elementary School at 4868 Buffalo Drive S.E.

Earlier in the day, police had been involved in a vehicle pursuit where the suspect fled on foot and ran across the school's property. Officers apprehended the person, cleared the area and activities at the school returned to normal.

A student later found a one-liter pop bottle on the grounds and gave it to a teacher, who then gave it to the janitorial staff. The bottle ended up in a trash dumpster but concerns were raised when it began to swell. The bottle had some type of liquid in it and was sealed with a cap.

Firefighters and a HAZMAT team then responded to the school to check it out. They later rendered it safe and collected the liquid contents for testing. It is unknown at this point what exactly was in the bottle.

Police also do not know if the suspect who ran from them dropped the bottle during the chase or if it ended up on the school grounds some other way.

Now that state authorities are stuck with the bill for cleaning up meth labs, they are looking for ways to cut costs and raise money to help pay for disposal of the toxic and potentially explosive chemicals.

Private contractors typically remove the state’s meth labs.

But some law enforcement agencies nationwide, including one in the Upstate, have sought to save money by doing much of the work themselves, a trend that accelerated last year when federal funds for cleanup evaporated.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is encouraging the approach by prioritizing funding in favor of states where officers clean up small labs themselves, put the waste in strategically placed containers and call contractors when the waste reaches a certain level.

A South Carolina group that included some of the state’s top law enforcement officers and emergency responders recommended against the approach, citing startup costs and liability.

DEWEYVILLE — Damage may top $1 million in a Wednesday afternoon fire that destroyed a 7,500-square-foot recycling facility in this small town east of Tremonton.

The fire was reported at 1:40 p.m. at Hillside Recycling, 12090 N. Highway 38, said Steve Batis, Tremonton fire chief.

The business is owned by Brent Rupp and his brother, Blaine.

Marcy Rupp, Brent’s wife, called the magnitude of the fire “overwhelming” and estimated the total damage will exceed $1 million.

The facility recycles plastics, paper, Styrofoam and other types of plastic foam.

Batis said a welder was working on an addition to the building when a spark from his torch set nearby plastic on fire.

The resulting fire quickly engulfed the building.

Boston, Mass. – Feb. 1, 2012) – Two New England companies that store and distribute hazardous chemicals have agreed in separate settlements to pay a total of more than $179,000 in penalties and to donate about $43,000 worth of equipment and training to local fire departments to settle EPA claims that they violated federal laws regulating companies that handle hazardous chemicals.

Settlement agreements with EPA’s New England office were signed recently by Hubbard-Hall Inc., a chemical storage and distribution company based in Waterbury, Conn., and by Monson Companies, Inc., which is based in Leominster, Mass. and has a warehouse in South Portland, Maine.

The claims and agreements with both companies arose out of a series of inspections that EPA New England has done in the last two years at chemical warehouse and distribution facilities in an effort to address compliance issues.  Since 2009, EPA New England has brought 13 Clean Air Act enforcement actions against companies that warehouse or distribute chemicals, including seven administrative compliance orders and six penalty orders.

WEST CHESTER TWP. — An unknown substance found in a dumpster today has been identified as cleaning solution by the West Chester Twp. hazardous materials team.
Around 2:10 p.m., West Chester Twp. fire officials responded to 4758 Interstate Drive after an employee reported seeing someone dump a 55-gallon drum of liquid into a dumpster, according to Barb Wilson, township spokeswoman.
Wilson said as of 2:30 p.m. units have already cleared the scene after the fluid ended up being cleaning solution. The person that dumped the fluid was found and will properly dispose of the liquid.

Police are investigating a small explosion outside a Boys & Girls Club in Fresno Tuesday morning.

It happened around 8:30 a.m. on Fulton, near Fresno's Tower District.

Trash collectors were picking up dumpsters when they heard a loud explosion.

Police and fire crews responded and determined the explosion came from a homemade chemical bomb.

Sean Johnson with the Fresno Fire Department said, "These types of devices are sometimes thought of as a prank; they're very dangerous. You shouldn't mess around with any type of pressurized device; you can get yourself hurt.

The ACT Fire Brigade and ACT Workcover both raised concerns about shoddy equipment and poor work safety practices by a Mitchell hazardous waste treatment company before last year's explosive chemical fire, according to documents released under Freedom of Information.
The documents also reveal the highly toxic nerve gas phosgene were detected in the fire's smoke plume, but emergency response crews had ''no capacity to test for larger exposure to chemicals''.

Last September, a massive chemical fire engulfed the Energy Services Invironmental waste treatment plant in Dacre Street, which was licensed by the ACT Environment Protection Agency to treat electrical transformer oil contaminated with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (known as PCBs). It hurled fireballs up to 200m above the burning building, and sent a dense plume of acrid black smoke billowing across Canberra's skyline.

LAREDO, TX. -Steve Landin, fire chief , said it is troubling to have at least one hazardous chemical spill in a week, accidents involving trucks that bring waste from the oil and gas reservoir Eagle Ford Shale.
He said companies that transport the waste violate a Texas law by carrying these substances uncovered and carelessly, causing spills on the streets and roads.
One of the most common places where these incidents are recorded are at the end of Highway 35 , arriving at about the Juarez- Lincoln Bridge , where firefighters continue to come and clean up.
Most troubling , he said, is that you do not know the type of waste that these trucks carry and in many cases not even the drivers know. "We are asking people when they see a spill of this type to call the police immediately to the number 795-2800 , for officers to give out violations to the driver and to clean up," he said.

A 30-year-old man was killed in a freak accident on Wednesday morning while he was working in a plastic recycle factory — Surya Traders in Kaikondanahalli on Sarjapur Main road in R.R. Layout. The deceased identified as Niranjan Ramdev Prasad was a native of Bihar. According to preliminary investigation, the incident took place around 12:30 pm when Niranjan was trying to cut open a 20 litre plastic drum, filled with industrial waste with an electrical cutter.

Accidentally, the chemical drum exploded and he fell on the electrical cutter which cut into his chest and he died on the spot. The blast led to a fire in the factory. The factory workers who were in the premises tried to douse the fire with water. Three fire tenders finally extinguished the fire. Property worth `2 lakh has been destroyed in the fire.

The police suspect that the plastic drum which was filled with highly inflammable substances was tried to cut open without removing its lid and that could have led to the explosion. Police have sent the pieces of drum and other materials to the Forensic Science Laboratory. The HSR Layout police have registered a case against the company owner and will take further action based on the FSL report.

Fire crews were called to the Foothills Hospital on Wednesday morning to deal with a hazardous material spill.

A courier was picking up bio-waste from the hospital when some of it spilled on him at around 9:00 a.m.

The worker was concerned about the possibility that the waste contained radioactive material so he sounded the alarm.

The Calgary Fire Department Hazardous Materials Response Team rushed to the hospital and decontaminated the man and one other person in the ambulance bay.

It was later learned, that the material in question was human waste.

"We had several hazardous materials individuals respond from our office, Haztech and Hazmat, and with the monitors they did identify the subsequent information that we were not exposed to radiation nor was anyone on the site," said CFD North Chief, Bill Peters

Indian officials have asked Aurobindo Pharma to provide details of the late November fire at a manufacturing plant that left two workers dead and one injured. The fire, which happened at an API plant in Andhra Pradesh, started after an explosion when the chemical trityl perchlorate was in use.

The request aligns with government concerns over pharma manufacturing safety, reports Pharmabiz. The report notes the rising incidence of fires at drugmaker facilities, which have caused about 6 deaths recently.

Officials say they are conducting regular safety checks. "In spite of our reminders, most of the pharma [companies] are violating the safety norms and resorting to deceiving tactics," a factories officer explains in the report. Manufacturers are hiring unqualified laborers who are unaware of the hazards, he adds.

Aurobindo had been cited for fire safety violations in April.

Separately, the state Pollution Control Board has charged 6 Hyderabad-area drugmakers with environmental violations concerning the disposal of spent solvents. A task force suspects the companies are selling the substances to construction companies, which use them to produce bitumen for road construction rather than safely disposing of it.

The board is threatening the shutdown of the following companies: Lakshmi Saraswathi Chemicals & Organics, Sri Harsha Organic, Apex Drugs & Intermediates, Shruti Laboratories, SKR Chemicals and Sujith Chemicals, according to the Times of India.

The holiday season wasn’t so happy for the families of two workers at the WTI hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio, across the river from Chester, W.Va.  A week before Christmas, a chemical fire a the facility — now officially known as Heritage-WTI Inc. — left one worker dead and another seriously burned.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board said in a statement:

According to company officials a flash fire occurred when workers were splitting a large solid waste drum of hazardous flammable inorganic material into smaller storage drums … Unfortunately accidents at hazardous waste processing facilities are all too common.

A hazardous materials incident in Redwood City Tuesday morning sent three Recology employees to the hospital and prompted the evacuation of several businesses, a city spokesman said.

Around 10 a.m., the Redwood City Fire Department received a 911 call reporting a hazardous materials spill in the 1500 block of Main Street, Redwood City spokesman Malcolm Smith said.

Firefighters from Redwood City, Belmont and Woodside responded, as did Redwood City police and the county hazardous materials team, Smith said.

Two Recology waste management garbage collectors had emptied a Dumpster into the garbage truck, Smith said. When they attempted to compress the materials with the truck, a white container burst, emitting a white fume, he said.

The two employees began feeling ill and vomiting. The Recology employees notified their supervisor, who called 911, Smith said.

Upon arriving at the scene, supervisor also began feeling ill, and all three were taken to a hospital, he said.

Four businesses on Main Street were evacuated and remained closed this afternoon while the hazardous materials team investigated the incident.

One of the chemicals has been identified as ammonia, and the hazardous materials team is continuing testing on the material in the back of the garbage truck, Smith said. Once the chemicals are determined, they will aim to neutralize them, he said.

A section of Main Street in downtown Redwood City remained closed to traffic between Chestnut Street and Pine Street Tuesday afternoon, and part of Pine Street was also closed.

A year after Adams Plating went up in flames, there's nothing left but lessons learned.

"First thing we would do is contact agencies like the EPA sooner than we did," said Sgt. Robert Ott, Ingham County Emergency Manager. "We were kind of at a loss for a day or so what to do."

Ingham County has had its eye on the EPA superfund site for decades, but hindsight's 20/20.

"We had a plan in place as to what we were going to do in case there was an incident, a hazmat incident, but add 40,000 gallons of water from putting the fire out, and it causes some issues we weren't necessarily prepared to...I shouldn't say prepared to handle, but something we were not expecting at the time," Ott said.

County hazmat teams contained hazardous waste to the site. Then the EPA removed the waste, demolished the building, and dug up contaminated ground water and soil.

EAST LIVERPOOL - A Glenmoor man is dead of injuries received Saturday in a fire at Heritage-WTI's hazardous waste incinerator, and another worker remains hospitalized.

Although company officials declined to identify the victims, they did say one of the men, a service technician who had been with the company five years, died in a Pittsburgh hospital.
....

Both men were transported to Pittsburgh after initially being taken to East Liverpool City Hospital following the fire.

Bailey and Bechak were in the process of separating products from a barrel when the material reacted, causing a small explosion, followed by a larger explosion, according to city fire department reports.

The explosion caused a flash fire in which the men were burned.

Fire reports indicated the barrel they were separating contained cutting oil, hafnium, niobium, water and zirconium, and according to Michael Parkes, head of community/employee relations, "We've split containers for years," and the men were doing a routine procedure.

MESA, AZ (KPHO) -
Mesa firefighters found seven 55-gallon drums filled with crushed fluorescent light bulbs in a garage on property owned by Banner Desert Hospital on Wednesday morning.

A fire department spokesman said a police K-9 and officer deemed the barrels safe, but at a hazard material level. Mesa Fire HAZMAT crews later opened the barrels and discovered the crushed light bulbs.

The barrels were labeled "HONEY" and found in the garage on the hospital grounds, though the garage is not owned by the hospital.

Officials said they did not know how the barrels got into the garage.

A private disposal company was used to transport them away, according to Forrest Smith of Mesa Fire.

He said police did evacuate the area near the garage as a precaution.

The state Environment Department may take Advantage Asphalt to court to get the Santa Fe-based paving firm to pay $817,000 in fines related to the mishandling of asbestos waste.

The company was cited in 2010 for violating rules regarding the handling of the hazardous material while working on a street-improvement product for the city of Bloomfield in 2009.

According to that citation, the firm improperly disposed of asbestos at a landfill, and then in a Dumpster, even after being notified that the waste required special handling.

The firm originally appealed the Environment Department's compliance order and said the city of Bloomfield didn't reveal the existence of the asbestos before the job began. A hearing was set in the case but was canceled after Advantage Asphalt indicated a desire to reach a settlement, according to Environment Department spokesman Jim Winchester.

LOS ANGELES—A Los Angeles man has been sentenced to five years in prison for illegally storing a huge amount of toxic chemicals and explosive hazardous waste, including unstable gunpowder, in his home.

Federal prosecutors say Monday's sentence of 64-year-old Edward Wyman was the stiffest penalty issued by a federal judge in California relating to a hazardous waste case. U.S. District Court Judge George King also ordered Wyman to pay $800,000 to the Environmental Protection Agency for costs associated with a 47-day clean-up.

Wyman was convicted in April of violating the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

Authorities found a cache of decades-old gunpowder and other hazardous waste in June 2009 when a fire broke out at Wyman's house. Exploding ammunition forced firefighters to wear bulletproof vests while battling the fire.

New South Wales Environment Minister Robyn Parker has called for an Environment Protection Authority (EPA) report into a chemical spill at Port Kembla yesterday.

The Minister says the incident occurred at the BlueScope recycling facility, contracted to Violia.

A drum carrying waste chemicals was damaged by a forklift, exposing a worker to the fumes.

Fire and rescue crews wore protective suits as they contained and cleaned up the spill.

Fire station commander Darin Sullivan says the chemical does not pose a risk to the public.

"It's one of those things where normal household chemicals have been put into rubbish by the looks of it and that's caused some troubles within the materials that it's been thrown out with," he said.

SEVIERVILLE — Firefighters and a hazardous materials cleanup crew were called to the TRW plant on River Road Tuesday afternoon after a fire at the facility.

Officials said there were no injuries at the facility when flames erupted from a large metal trash bin holding oily filters from inside the plant.

“We had a dumpster fire on the exterior of the building,” said Capt. Steve Whaley of the Sevier County Volunteer Fire Department. “We ended up having a little bit of a (hazardous materials) issue.”

Fires can ignite where the filters are stored because the oil is sometimes still hot when it’s placed in the container, he explained.

The owners of Continental Fabric Care abandoned a tractor-trailer containing drums of dangerous chemicals on a Denver street, according to an indictment.

The company, and June Ho Choi, 60, and Hyun S. Pak, 63, never obtained a permit to dispose of or store the dry cleaning chemicals, according to the 5-page indictment, filed in Denver District Court.

The indictment also alleges that the pair lied to the EPA about the matter. Neither could be reached for comment.

On June 12 last year, Denver Fire Lt. Jeff Fletcher contacted a Colorado Attorney General's Office investigator after employees of a business in the 3700 block of Nome Street noticed chemical odors coming from the abandoned semi, according to the indictment.

At about the same time, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment learned details about the hazardous waste in the trailer, which was parked on the street for three days.

Emergency supplies of fresh linen had to be trucked in from Sydney during September's Mitchell fire crisis, to keep the Canberra Hospital's operating theatres running.
Plans were even made to send firefighters with breathing apparatus into the ACT Government's linen service within the evacuation zone to retrieve sterile surgical linen packs.

The chemical fire broke out late at night on September 15 at the Energy Services Invironmental hazardous waste treatment plant, and resulted in much of the industrial suburb being shut down for several days.

Minister for Territory and Municipal Service Simon Corbell told a Legislative Assembly Committee that emergency measures had to be put in place to ensure the hospital's surgical teams continued to get their sterile uniforms and other linen.

Capital Linen, regarded as critical infrastructure because of its importance to medical health services, employs about 100 people at its Mitchell site and launders about 100 tonnes of linen each week for the ACT Government and private clients.

Ottawa Fire Services and hazmat crews responded to a chemical reaction in a garbage truck on Beechwood Avenue near Marquette Avenue in Ottawa’s east end.

Spokesperson Marc Messier said the truck pulled up in front of the fire hall and had some smoke coming out of the back.

Messier said that muriatic acid in the back of the truck had reacted with another substance, but it’s unknown what the other substance was.

He said the type of acid is known for its use in pools and scoring concrete.

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Good intentions almost became disaster Sunday at the Westside landfill's recycling center.

Firefighters were called to the Cerro Colorado site, after recycling workers reported fire in a stack of recyclables.

According to Bernalillo County Fire Officials, it appears the fire was the result of a chemical reaction involving improperly tossed materials.

“The fire was actually caused by some citizens or whoever does home recycling, threw some material into a bin at a local site,” Commander Corey Finch said. “it was actually trucked over here and dumped, they noticed the fire and they tried to put it out with fire extinguishers but as soon as the air hit it, it did flare up.”

Texas Tech’s vice president for research said he was not concerned two accidental nitric acid explosions on campus in two weeks would hurt Tech’s reputation as an emerging research university.

“I would rather say we are in a situation where the accidents at Texas Tech are being used as an example to other universities of what not to do,” Taylor Eighmy said a day after an explosion prompted about six students and faculty to evacuate a campus building.

Nobody was injured nor contaminated Thursday night, but the explosion prompted dozens of first responders and a Lubbock Fire Department hazardous material crew to clear the building.

Eighmy blamed the accident on a faculty member’s or student’s improper handling of waste material in a storage cabinet under a hood in a laboratory in Tech’s Engineering and Technology Lab.

He said pressure built up in a glass bottle of waste nitric acid, creating a small explosion, sending shards of glass throughout the lab and acid leaking from the cabinet.

The second chemical explosion in two weeks at Texas Tech prompted campus officials to evacuate an engineering building late Thursday.

Nobody was injured or contaminated after what Tech spokesman Chris Cook called a small explosion about 7:15 p.m. in a laboratory in the Engineering and Technology Lab off the school’s engineering key at Canton Avenue and Glenna Goodacre Boulevard.

Cook said nobody was in the lab when nitric acid and an unknown waste product somehow combined to produce the explosion.

A student responding to the noise opened the lab’s door and recognized the smell of nitric acid, Cook said.

“They evacuated the building immediately upon realizing what it was,” he said.

HAZMAT was called to a fire in an industrial area of Santee that caused authorities to block traffic of Prospect Avenue just west of Cuyamaca Street on Sunday night.

The fire broke out at Al-Max Sanitation (10035 Prospect Ave.), a site that recycles restaurant refuse, like greasy water and food particles, and was caused by "decomposition of organic material," according to Santee Fire Division Chief Dave Miller.

The fire started in an area where Al-Max separates liquids and solids, the solids storage building essentially self combusted. Miller explained that when organic matter decomposes, especially a lot of it compressed together, it creates it's own heat and if anything combustible comes near the heat, it can catch fire.

San Diego County HAZMAT responded because of industrial chemicals that were potentially involved in the fire. Three Santee fire engines, a rescue engine, a truck and a medic unit also responded, according to Miller. 

(New York, N.Y.) Removing a significant threat to public health and safety, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the municipality of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico are proceeding with an emergency cleanup of improperly stored hazardous materials at a storage facility in Barrio Vietnam, Guaynabo. EPA is working closely with Guaynabo fire, police and hazardous materials personnel on the removal of over 1,500 drums and other containers of various chemical compounds to prevent a potential chemical release or explosion. The site is a residential area about seven miles south of San Juan that is not zoned for this type of commercial business.

"EPA is working hand in hand with government officials in Guaynabo to prevent a release, fire or explosion of hazardous substances that could endanger the health of people living near the facility,” said Judith A. Enck, EPA Regional Administrator. “EPA has taken quick action to protect the local community and the environment to ensure that hazardous materials from the facility are disposed of properly. EPA thanks the municipality of Guaynabo for their cooperation.” Mayor Hector O'Neil of the Autonomous Municipality of Guaynabo said: “Our municipality has joined as a facilitator in the removal work of all materials that represent a risk to our residents. We have made available to EPA all our resources so that the work is done effectively and efficiently while minimizing the risks to our neighbors and the sector. We have made available to EPA both staff from medical emergency services and OMED."

EPA personnel responded on Sept. 27 after receiving information about an abandoned chemical warehouse in the area. The site contains over 1,500 drums, chemical totes, bags and other containers of chemicals, many of which are not labeled. One warehouse is partially collapsed and the chemicals are exposed to wind and rain. Found in varying states of disrepair and neglect, many of the drums are leaking their contents onto the ground. The containers are haphazardly stored, and in some instances have collapsed onto other containers. The former owner and operator of the business is deceased.
Chemical substances including acids, solvents, discontinued commercial chemicals and caustic chemicals are being secured or prepared for proper disposal at an off-site licensed facility. EPA will be sending hundreds of containers determined safe to transport back to the original manufacturer.

The 22-year-old composting worker left brain dead after an industrial accident Wednesday in Lamont was taken off life support and died, according to the Kern County coroner's office.

Heladio Ramirez, of Arvin, died at 11:04 a.m. Friday in Kern Medical Center's intensive care unit. His family in the days prior had been agonizing over whether to end life support.

Days earlier, Ramirez' 16-year-old brother, Armando Ramirez, died inside an 8-foot-deep drainage tunnel at Community Recycling and Resource Co. when he was overcome by hydrogen sulfide, a deadly byproduct of the composting process that attacks the central nervous system.

The brothers were cleaning out the tunnel. Heladio Ramirez saw his brother unconscious and went down to rescue him, and was also overcome by fumes. A third worker who did not enter the tunnel was also overcome, but was treated and released.

Workers are being checked over after a chemical spill at a recycling centre in Fife.

Fire crews, ambulance and police were called at around midday on Tuesday after the nitric acid was spilt at Wellwood Recycling Plant near Dunfermline.

Nine people had to be taken to hospital to be treated after they inhaled the fumes from the fluid.


The area around the container has been cordoned off and workers who may have come into contact with or inhaled the fluid are being checked over.

The 10 litres of fluid is 68% nitric acid and cannot be cleaned up by firefighters, who are having to call in specialist company.

Four people taken to emergency following a haz-mat incident in Abbotsford were not seriously injured.

It happened shortly after ten this morning at a recycling plant on Peardonville Road.

Deputy Fire Chief Mike Helmer says the cause is believed to be exposure to some form of acetone.

Those taken to hospital had symptoms including burning throats and dizziness.

Helmer says twelve more people --who came into contact with the others-- have also been taken to the Abbotsford Hospital for observation.

A contractor came into contact with medical waste with low-level radiation in a dumpster on the Walter Reed Bethesda campus Monday evening, according to Fire and Rescue assistant chief Scott Graham.

Fire and Rescue units were called to the military hospital around 8p.m. Eleven people were evaluated but no one was injured or taken to the hospital, including the person who came into contact with the contaminant, Graham said. The contractor had the substance on his gloves, Graham said.

The contractor's gloves and outer clothing was removed and the person was dry-decontaminated, Graham said.

Walter Reed Bethesda officials have a cleanup team responsible for rendering the material safe and properly disposing of it, Graham said.

FAIRFIELD -- State Police detonated a glass pint container containing a potentially unstable, volatile chemical Saturday after it was brought to an otherwise routine hazardous materials collection day in Veterans Park.

The incident started at about 1:15 p.m., when a woman brought the container of tetrahydrofuran, a laboratory solvent and an ingredient in creating polymers, which was identified as potentially hazardous by the collection contractor from Clean Harbor Inc. The unidentified woman said she had taken it from her husband's home laboratory.

Police and firefighters closed part of Reef Road and established a 150-foot safety area around the collection area before the chemical was blown up by the State Police Emergency Services Unit.

Vats of waste from a methamphetamine lab were found near a vacant lot in Willoughby last Friday by the Langley RCMP.

Police officers patrolling the 7800 block of 208th Street noted a new car parked in the middle of an abandoned acreage, said Cpl. Holly Marks of the Langley RCMP.

The car sped off and officers weren’t able to follow it, but they did find five 45-gallon drums full of unknown liquids. Another 40 20-litre pails with more liquid were also left behind.

Officers from the Clandestine Lab Response Team were called in and found that the goo was the leftover waste from a meth lab.

The Township fire department stood by, and staff at nearby Willoughby Elementary were also warned, while officers kept a perimeter around the scene to keep students clear.

Hazco, a waste disposal company, cleaned up the materials.

JOHNSTON, R.I. (WPRI) - A minor hazardous materials spill at the offices of the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, at the Johnston Central Landfill, left two people with minor burns.

It happened a little before 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. Fire crews told Eyewitness News an unknown substance -- a liquid -- got sprayed on a couple of workers, causing skin irritation. Both workers were rushed to the hospital.

As of Tuesday afternoon, officials are trying to figure out what the substance was. There's no word how the workers are doing.

An explosion of a tank containing a toxic gas left 48 people admitted to hospital, some in critical condition.

The explosion, at a scrap metal yard in the densely populated Shauri Moyo Estate in Nairobi, caused panic as residents and passers-by inhaled the chlorine acid fumes.


Doctors and nurses receive a patient at Kenyatta National Hospital. Over 48 people were admitted to the hospital in serious condition after inhaling toxic gas at Shauri Moyo Nairobi, on Wednesday. Photo: Moses Omusula/Standard

The explosion filled the air with huge yellow fumes, which choked many, causing some to faint.

Two University of Maryland students were injured Monday in the College Park campus’s Chemistry Building when a chemical reaction caused an explosion and small fire in the lab where they were working.

The two women were taken to a hospital with first-degree chemical burns and minor lacerations but were in good condition, Prince George’s County fire department spokesman Mark Brady said. The explosion occurred during an afternoon chemistry class as students were working with nitric and sulfuric acid.

“Typically these are friendly acids that work well together, but when they dumped the chemicals into a chemical waste container, that was what caused the explosion and fire,” Mr. Brady said.

The four-story building was evacuated after the explosion and a small fire were reported on the third floor at about 12:30 p.m. University employees attempted to extinguish the fire before smoke and vapor drove them out of the lab, Mr. Brady said. Firefighters who responded to the lab were quickly able to extinguish the fire.

About 11 people were in the lab when the fire broke out, but only the two students were injured.

PARIS (AP) — One person died and another was seriously injured in an explosion Monday in a site that treats nuclear waste in southern France, the country's nuclear safety body said, adding that no radioactive leaks have been detected.
The Nuclear Safety Authority said three other people suffered lesser injuries in the blast at an oven in the Centraco nuclear site.
The Centraco site is located next to another nuclear site, Marcoule, located in Languedoc-Roussillon, in southern France, near the Mediterranean Sea.
"According to initial information, the explosion happened in an oven used to melt radioactive metallic waste of little and very little radioactivity," the agency said in a statement.
Officials from France's EDF power company, whose subsidiary operates Centraco, stressed that there was no nuclear reactor on the site and that no waste treated at the site of the explosion came from a reactor.

NEW DELHI—Six senior professors at the University of Delhi face up to 2 years in prison over their roles in India's first fatality from accidental exposure to radiation. On 2 September, Delhi police charged the university's former science dean and five colleagues in the chemistry department with "causing death by negligence" and violating the Atomic Energy Act over the improper disposal of a derelict gamma-ray research device in 2010.

The unprecedented case has shaken India's scientific community. "This should serve as a wakeup call," says metallurgist Srikumar Banerjee, chair of the Atomic Energy Commission in Mumbai. "The responsibility of maintaining the equipment was clearly with the university authorities."

The accident occurred after a University of Delhi official ordered a campus-wide spring cleaning to create space for newly recruited staff members. An auction committee cleared the sale of a Gamma cell 220 research irradiator, which a university chemist had imported from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. in 1968 but which had lain unused since 1985. On 26 February 2010, the university auctioned the 3500-kilogram device to a scrap dealer. Seven scrapyard workers, unaware that the machine they were dismantling contained cobalt-60—a radioactive, gray-blue metal resembling nickel—fell ill; one died.

FIREFIGHTERS were tackling a chemical alert at a North-East factory unit this afternoon.

Reports were received of the chemical release from Rayovac Micro Power Ltd, at Washington, shortly after 2pm.

Chemical fumes were said to be coming from a waste storage unit within the factory, which produces batteries for hearing aids, on Stephenson Industrial Estate.

Residents of about 28 homes were evacuated late Saturday night after some type of chemical release at Environmental Waste Services Inc. in Glencoe, Denise Cooey, deputy director of Gadsden-Etowah County Emergency Management Agency, said.

Cooey said a passerby reported to the Glencoe Police Department a strong smell coming from the plant on Webster’s Chapel Road, about a half-mile off U.S. Highway 431.

 She said in a short time, the police officers also could smell the odor and it was determined to be coming from a holding tank at the plant.  The police department contacted the Glencoe Fire Department and it contacted EMA. 

“You could see the emission of a white cloud coming from the tank, and the smell was irritating,” Cooey said.

 The plant manager was able to explain that the tank contained chemical waste materials, but was unsure what had caused the reaction that created the plume and the odor, Cooey said.

She said all waste materials at the plant are tested in the lab to make sure they can be placed in the tank without a reaction, and there had been no indication that any of the chemicals would react.

Cooey said the temperature of the tank reached about 240 degrees and the plume was emitting the smell.

PIGEON FORGE — A fire Friday evening at the landfill on Ridge Road spread quickly over a couple acres of construction and demolition waste, but fortunately never threatened structures or surrounding woods.

With the help of a bulldozer operated by a Sevier Solid Waste employee, crews from five fire departments were able to quickly knock the blaze down, leaving a large cloud of thick smoke the only problem. In dealing with that, Emergency Management Director John Mathews issued his first reverse 911, a system that calls people in the area of an emergency to give them warning.

"My main concern out of all of this is the smoke," Pigeon Forge Fire Department Chief Tony Watson said. "It's not something we want spreading, since we've got those construction materials burning in there, so we've got to control it."

FIREFIGHTERS who dealt with chemicals burning in a skip in Pebsham warned they might be “highly toxic” according to a worried resident.

She contacted the Observer to say tins inside the skip were burning all weekend and the fire was not put out until Bank Holiday Monday in the late afternoon.

Afterwards members of the Bexhill fire crew warned people living near to the light industrial site to be aware fumes could have been harmful.

She said; “We called the fire crew out because the fire had been going for a couple of days.

“We are just not happy about this. They were concerned about residents because of the type of materials being burned so they even put the hospital on alert.”

She reported there had been “a lot of smoke” during Saturday and Sunday and “when you went out, it caught your breath”.

She added: “We weren’t at risk because it was too far from where we live but it was still close enough, because apparently whatever was in there was resin which sends out toxic plumes which you don’t necessarily see but which you can inhale.”

East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service were alerted at 5.15pm on Monday and stayed until 7.04pm to make sure the fire was under control.

ESFRS confirmed this week the skip contained chemical substances and said some locals who spoke to firefighters at the scene complained of experiencing sore throats and headaches and expressed concern that the smoke may be toxic.

WAUWATOSA, Wis. -- The Wauwatosa Fire Department is on the scene of a hazardous materials incident near the Medical College of Wisconsin.
A fire department spokesperson confirmed they had responded to a HAZMAT situation at 11001 W. Plank Ct.
The address is a Wheaton Franciscan laboratory located near Highway 100 and Watertown Plank Rd.
A representative with Wheaton Franciscan told 12 News that an employee discovered a leak in a solvent recycling machine. While employees contained the spill, the fire department was called part of their standard procedure.
When the Wauwatosa Fire Department arrived on scene, they asked for HazMat to also respond as the solvent involved was highly flammable.
The Milwaukee Fire Department HazMat team was also asked to respond to the scene.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A grassfire in central Bakersfield got into a building storing chemicals Saturday afternoon, and the smoke slowed traffic way down on Highway 99.
As traffic crawled through the smoke southbound on Highway 99, fire crews had to shut down the on-ramp to Golden State Highway as they worked.
Fire crews said there were actually two fires. The first was burning near Landco Road, along some train tracks in that area. That fire burned about seven acres.
The second fire was on Standard Drive, and got into the railroad ties and other items being behind some businesses, including an outbuilding at B.C. Labs, a chemical company.
Environmental health investigators say flames got close to some "chlorinated hazardous waste," but it was contained and nothing was released.

NORMAL -- A small chemical spill Friday morning at an Illinois State University storage lab was quickly contained, but the Bloomington Hazardous Materials response team arrived to address it, as is protocol.
Apparently, the situation stemmed from a broken bottle which contained chlorinated waste - collected from ISU science laboratories and kept in a storage locker off Gregory Street, said Eric Jome, an ISU spokesman.
"It's contained in the building, there is no real danger at this point," Jome said about 11:30 a.m.
The spill, reported about 10:30 a.m., didn't require any road closures or evacuations, said Matt Swaney, Normal Fire Department spokesman.

MURFREESBORO — A smoldering fire ignited by aluminum waste at an Ohio landfill sparked Allied Waste officials to stop accepting that type of special waste four years ago at its facilities, including Middle Point Landfill.

Middle Point, located off Jefferson Pike in the Walter Hill community just north of Murfreesboro, hasn't sustained any fires caused by waste such as salt cake and bag house dust, nor do officials believe there is a threat of fire.

But it recently experienced elevated temperatures at one spot on the landfill, which was reported to the state.

"Middle Point stopped accepting aluminum processing waste in 2007 as we became aware of the potential oxidation issues," said John Doyen, general manager of the landfill.

Since reporting the problem to the state March 28, Allied Waste is operating Middle Point under a consent order from the Tennessee Division of Solid Waste requiring it to take special steps to manage and control the toxic substance.

Windsor firefighters spent six hours at the Chrysler plant early Wednesday, flushing out the source of a strong odour of gas come from the sewers.

Fire prevention officer John Lee says the problem was traced to the paint plant, where runoff waste became clogged in the sewers.

A hazardous materials crew flushed more than 470,000 litres of water down the sewers to reduce the gas levels, Lee said.

He said recent heavy rainfall forced the gasoline odours to rise. A vacuum truck was to be brought in to clean up the runoff. Minivan production wasn't interrupted and the gas did not pose a threat to safety, Lee said.

Two firefighters suffered minor injuries this morning during a hazardous materials incident involving pool chemicals at a waste facility in Rancho Cordova.
Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District firefighters responded at 11:15 a.m. to a report of a fire involving hazardous materials in the 11000 block of White Road Road. They arrived to find smoke and fumes coming from a hazardous waste storage area on the site, according to a district news release.

Workers told firefighters that they were repacking dry pool chemicals in a 55-gallon drum and it appeared a chemical reaction occurred, causing a small fire and what they thought was off gassing of the material. Workers said they used a dry chemical fire extinguisher on the fire and thought they had slowed the chemical reaction. They left the area unharmed.

Firefighters were able to separate the material, which helped stop the spread and continued chemical reaction, officials said. The district's hazmat team arrived and entered the facility where they further reduced the remaining hazards.

The two injured firefighters were taken to a hospital for evaluation, and both were released for return to full duty.

NASA spent decades to send men to the moon, launch the space shuttles and build a labo-ratory in space, and now it will take a century to clean up the chemical messes left behind.

Plumes of carcinogenic chemicals used in the launch-ing of the space shuttles, Apollo moon shots and other rockets seeped deep into sandy soils beneath launch pads and other structures at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

They form viscous toxic goo that will take $1 billion in cleanup costs agencywide over many decades, and could bog down funding for next-generation spacecraft.

NASA estimates it will spend $96 million in the next 30 years at Kennedy Space Center, including $6 million this year. The Air Force says it will take another $50 million to get the rest of its cleanups at Cape Canaveral under way by 2017.

"In the past, back in Apollo, the normal disposal of the sol-vent cleaning was down the drain ... out the back door," said Rosaly Santos-Ebaugh, Kennedy's remediation program manager, the person responsible for leading the cleanup.

A Preston firm has admitted a health and safety breach following a huge chemical blaze which shot aerosols into the air like rockets.

The fire broke out at Aztec Aerosols in Crewe, Cheshire, in June 2007 after an explosion in an aerosol shredding unit designed by Preston-based company, Pakawaste.

Many of the aerosols shot into the air and onto nearby roads after catching fire, damaging buildings near the waste recycling plant.

It took more than 100 firefighters with 25 engines to put out the blaze.

Fire chiefs said it was “extremely lucky” no-one was injured in the fire or the explosion, which could be heard up to half a mile away.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found a fault in the shredding unit’s design and manufacturing process had resulted in the unit exploding.

Crews are still trying to clean up the chemical waste that spilled after a tanker exploded in Sawyer, Mich. Thursday night.

A truck driver stopped at a TA Restaurant just off of I-94 and Sawyer Road, and when he came back out he noticed a leak.

Authorities say the leak continued, and when the truck stopped venting, it built up gas and exploded.

Everyone was evacuated and no injuries were reported.

There was no damage to the building, but power lines were knocked out.

Authorities at the scene said they are not yet sure what type of waste was in the truck.

Chikaming police said the road and business remain closed.

Residents were evacuated and hazardous materials teams descended on Ponder Lane in Deer Park after containers marked radioactive were found. Tests came back negative, residents returned, containers were removed.

A hazardous waste sticker on garbage placed for curbside pickup on a street in Deer Park led to the mobilization of hazmat teams from fire departments throughout the Town of Babylon, as well as Suffolk County police Emergency Services Unit officers Monday.
An investigation by those teams found no harmful items in that container, police said.

SACRAMENTO, CA - Crews extinguished a fire that broke out around 5:10 p.m. in a waste disposal company trailer Wednesday around 7:15 p.m.

Authorities evacuated several streets around the Level III Hazmat situation on Elder Creek Road that first developed a little before 8 a.m.

The incident is at Mike and Sons Truck Repair at 8542 Elder Creek Road, according to the Sacramento Fire Department.

Hazmat responders said there were 40 different chemicals in the truck/trailer, which belong to a cleaning company called Clean Harbors.

Sacramento City Fire Capt. Jon Burges said a number of substances mixed together and created vapors.

CHULA VISTA — A fire that started in a crumpled stack of junked cars was still burning four hours after it began Thursday afternoon at an auto parts recycling center in Chula Vista. Containment was expected by about 5:30 p.m., authorities said.

More than 60 firefighters from several agencies, including Chula Vista, San Diego and Hazmat responded to a vehicle fire at 1 p.m. at Pick Your Park Auto Wrecking on Energy Way in Chula Vista, said Deputy Chief Jim Garcia of the Chula Vista Fire Department.

When the first crews arrived, they found a compressed stack of eight to 12 cars on fire, he said.

The fire spread and scorched 12 acres of grass next to the wrecking yard, but that blaze was contained within an hour, Garcia said. The vehicles continued to burn because of the amount of tire rubber, he said.

No homes were threatened and there were no injuries, Garcia said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Firefighters in hazardous materials suits prepare to enter the Airport Road Transfer Station to collect a chemical sample to test for identification. Tests determined the chemical was potassium hydroxide.

A cloud of fumes that rose at a Snohomish County waste transfer station near Paine Field on Wednesday morning were likely caused by a corrosive chemical that had been dumped in with garbage.
 
Hazardous materials teams from several fire departments responded to the chemical spill inside the Snohomish County Airport Road Recycling & Transfer Station on May 18 on the 10700 block of Minuteman Drive, east of Paine Field.
 
Tests determined that the chemical was potassium hydroxide, said Leslie Hynes, spokesperson for Snohomish County Fire District 1. Potassium hydroxide, aka caustic potash, is a corrosive agent with a variety of industrial uses.

Solvent Resource Management Ltd has been fined £150,000 after a spill released waste solvents and water at its chemical plant in Rye, East Sussex.

A steel tank holding solvent and contaminated water collapsed onto a retaining wall, releasing the fluids into the surrounding land.

The 340 tonnes of solvent and water was potentially hazardous and highly flammable, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The tank was found to have been damaged by internal corrosion.

A second tank was damaged during the accident, knocking off a valve which also released contaminated waste water on to the site and neighbouring property.

The area was cordoned off by East Sussex Fire for two days due to the potentially hazardous nature of the incident.